Jared Benjamin/J.B. Stone (he/they) is a Neurodivergent/Autistic Multidisciplinary teaching artist, writer, critic, and editor from Brooklyn, now residing in Buffalo, NY. They are the author of three chapbooks, and are the founding EIC at Variety Pack. J.B.’s poems have appeared in Hawaii-Pacific Review, JMWW, Maudlin House, The Buffalo News, among other places. His poem, “Blues for Haku,” was a winning selection in Button Poetry’s 2024 Short Form Poetry Contest.
One Day Maybe We Will Be Lions
i
when I say I have depression
I mean my sky is a pale-horse, winter white
when the rest of the world around me
can see a bright, crystal summer blue
ii
when I say I have high anxiety disorder
I mean my heart—I mean my tongue
—my stomach—fills precious insides
with the tastes of locust swarms
rather than butterfly colonies
iii
when I say I have ADHD
I mean my mind works
like a racer without a pit-crew,
just a panicked pilot navigating a lapping speedway,
trying to be ahead, but
ends
up
breaking
down
iv
when I say I’m Autistic
I mean I wasn’t born to be someone else’s
puzzle piece
paraded to be
someone else’s “Moment of Zen”
I mean I am not the subject
for your inspiration pornography
v
when I say this is a poem
I mean it’s just as much an echo chamber
one whose message unwinds into the future
while rewinding back into the past
& as for the ghost of my pasts
you no longer haunt me
the same ghosts who told my eleven-year-old self
that this world would be better off if a SPED like
me crashed into a ravine rather than pulled up to their
school instead please know this
when you told me I’d be nothing but a puddle
watch me expand into an ocean
when you told me I’m nothing but a pebble
watch me grow up to be a mountain
when you told me I’m not just a dying flower
but
the
dirt
crackles
beneath it
watch me evolve into the same forests of wicker blossoms and evergreen pine
you failed to burn
vi
to the ghosts of my past
maybe one day the sky will open up as more friend than foe
the sunlight will make me feel more mortal than vampire
maybe one day you will watch me roar with the pride of a lion,
a mammoth, clawing across his grassland, rising out of dens
not with the ignorance of ownership
not with the lust for kingdoms
just to let you know that my being
is no longer a space
where I am preyed upon
that this pride was forged
from a fire of foundlings
that my being is more than a question mark
I am a full statement
a commentary
an uncompromised promise
maybe, one day
you’ll see the hate in your speech
& know what a love looks like
unabashed
unapologetic
untethered